Domain Name Fraud: Facebook sues Namecheap and Whoisguard

In October 2019, the company filed a similar lawsuit against domain name registrar OnlineNIC and its privacy/proxy service ID Shield.

Facebook said Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit against Namecheap, a domain name registrar, as well as its proxy service, Whoisguard for registering domain names, or web addresses, that pretended to be affiliated with the social media giant.

Whoisguard, registered or used 45 domain names such as instagrambusinesshelp.com, facebo0k-login.com, and whatsappdownload.site that impersonated Facebook and its services, making them appear legitimate and confuse people, Christen Dubois, Director and Associate General Counsel, IP Litigation at Facebook said in a blog post.

Facebook often collaborates with domain name registrars and privacy/proxy service to take down the malicious domains but Whoisguard declined to cooperate in the case. "We sent notices to Whoisguard between October 2018 and February 2020, and despite their obligation to provide information about these infringing domain names, they declined to cooperate," the social networking giant said.

Facebook says it regularly tracks and takes action against suspicious and misleading domains and apps that are often used for phishing, fraud and scams. In October 2019, the company filed a similar lawsuit against domain name registrar OnlineNIC and its privacy/proxy service ID Shield.

"We don't want people to be deceived by these web addresses, so we've taken legal action. Our goal is to create consequences for those who seek to do harm and we will continue to take legal action to protect people from domain name fraud and abuse," Facebook said.